In addition to Franco in Spain and Rossi in Italy, Reinhardt's more direct allies were Antonescu in Romania and Mannerheim in Finland.

Compared with Mannerheim, who finally decided to join the counterattack army, the Romanian high-level leaders, who had been close to Germany because the two northern provinces were unreasonably occupied by the Soviet Union, were naturally closer to Germany.

In Romania, now their leader is no longer the king, but the original General Antonescu.

In fact, Reinhardt had long been concerned about Antonescu, the general destined to become the dictator of Romania.

In 1938, he had already served as Minister of War of Romania. Until then, although Antonescu had been considered a pro-British faction within Romania, he had a very good personal relationship with Reinhardt.

And with the defeat of France later, Antonescu's thinking also changed dramatically.

In his opinion, Germany was bound to win the war, and only by standing with Germany could Romania be protected.

The seizure of a series of Romanian territories under Soviet pressure did not shake Antonescu's idea of unity, but rather deepened it.

And Reinhardt, who has always had a good personal relationship with Antonescu, obviously also took a fancy to his "excellent" old friend.

In public, Reinhardt praised more than once: "General Antonescu has a high influence in the army, and he is personally evaluated in the Romanian military as having qualities such as 'strong-willedness, decisive decision-making' and so on."

Anyone with a discerning eye can see that Antonescu, the Romanian general, is very favored by the German Führer.

With Reinhardt's support, whether overt or implicit, Antonescu became prime minister on September 4, 1940, and on the 5th, he forced King Carroll to abdicate, dissolved the Romanian parliament, and declared the Iron Guard under his control the only legal party in Romania.

This is similar to the incident when Albert dissolved and reorganized the parliament in Germany, and the National Socialist Party led by Reinhardt became the largest legal political party in Germany.

It is no exaggeration to say that Antonescu was also somewhat influenced by Germany in doing so.

Subsequently, with Antonescu's nod, Reinhardt ordered the German troops to quickly enter the country on the pretext of assisting Romania in training its troops, tying Romania tightly to the Central Powers and to German chariots.

And that's not all.

The Romanian army was quickly reorganized according to the German army's size and standards. And Antonescu quickly lost patience with the Iron Guard's actions at home.

On the other hand, Antonescu had no intention of creating a "pure" Romania, as the Iron Guard demanded, because this would mean not only massacre, but also economic collapse and loss of support from party leaders and the army.

This is almost the same as Reinhardt's dismissal of the SA under the nominal control of the National Socialist Party, and he had no intention of building a "pure" Germany like the SA. In order to gain the support of the army and oppose the massacre of the Jews, Reinhardt destroyed the stormtroopers in Germany with a thunderbolt.

Antonescu, who had long admired Reinhardt's methods, held his first bilateral meeting with Reinhardt as a national leader on November 22, 1940.

Antonescu showed the world public without any suspense, and he won the favor and approval of Reinhardt, the dignified German Führer.

In order to release goodwill and win over the Romanian dictator, Reinhardt really did as Antonescu wanted, declaring that the Third Reich attached great importance to Romania's oil, and that the leaders of the Iron Guard were considered incompetent.

Reinhardt did this partly because he decided to rely on Antonescu to consolidate German rule over Romania.

On the other hand, Reinhardt is well aware of how reliable Antonescu's ally is as a time-tested ally. And the Iron Guard was very incompetent in Reinhardt's eyes, and it was not worth supporting.

After that, in April 1941. At the height of the Anglo-German War, the Romanian Iron Guards decided to go to war with the dictatorial general who had "betrayed" their beliefs in order to realize their illusory "ideals".

Because of the war with Britain and the defense against the Soviet Union, Germany did not have the energy to care about the civil war in Romania.

Antonescu used his loyal Romanian army to strike a blow at the Iron Guard's troublemakers.

The Iron Guard, although with a domineering name. But they are also essentially a civilian terrorist organization, far inferior in combat effectiveness to the regular Romanian army.

What's more, it was a new type of army that the Germans helped train!

The Iron Guard was torn apart within a few days, and their leader, Horia Sima, abandoned his "ideals" and fled to Germany for refuge.

At the same time, Antonescu continued to establish his order: on April 15, 1941, all political parties in Romania were banned. The self-proclaimed "chieftain" was finally able to take power to his own hands with little hindrance.

However, for the old Romanian politicians, he followed Reinhardt's advice and carried out mass arrests that he had not carried out in history.

In this way, although Antonescu's reputation has deteriorated a little, it has completely eliminated future troubles.

May 27, 1941 was a big day for the Romanians, who went to war with the Soviet Union, but they had a strong ally – the Third German Reich!

On June 1, Antonescu met with Reinhardt to sign an agreement, and Reinhardt generously stated that in addition to assisting Romania in recovering the Soviet-occupied areas, the Allied forces could also help Romania in the east of the Transnistrian River to seek compensation from the Soviets.

Hearing that he could gain more territory than he once had, Antonescu, the Romanian "chieftain", immediately shouted to Reinhardt in the conference room: "I will naturally support you from the first day, and if you want to fight the Slavs, you can always rely on Romania." ”

On the afternoon of June 1, more than 40 divisions of the Romanian army and the German army launched a counteroffensive on the southern front, and fought fiercely with the two most elite army groups in Zhukov's "Mars operation".

And at the same time that the Romanian army had gone all out, working at full speed to live and die with Germany, and fighting side by side.

In return for Antonescu's support for the Allies and his desperate assistance to Germany in the war against the Soviet Union, Reinhardt prepared a separate gift for Antonescu himself in Berlin......